From the May 2008 Scientific American Magazine | 6 comments

Regulating Evolution: How Gene Switches Make Life ( Preview )

Switches within DNA that govern when and where genes are turned on enable genomes to generate the great diversity of animal forms from very similar sets of genes

By Sean B. Carroll, Nicolas Gompel and Benjamin Prudhomme

Common Genes, Endless Variety

The evolution of enhancers is not at all limited to genes affecting body form nor just to fruit flies and weird fish. Quite a few examples of evolutionary changes in regulatory sequences that alter gene expression have been demonstrated for human traits as well.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Sean B. Carroll, Benjamin Prud'homme and Nicolas Gompel have worked together for several years to decipher how the evolution of regulatory DNA sequences shapes animal morphology. Carroll is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and professor of molecular biology and genetics at the University of WisconsinMadison, as well as the author of two popular books about evolution. Prudhomme and Gompel, both former post�doctoral fellows in Carrolls laboratory, now investigate the evolution of animal forms and behavior in their own laboratory in France, at the Developmental Biology Institute of Marseille Luminy.

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